Divide and conquer

Divvy up responsibilities to decrease everyone’s mental load

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to divide and conquer streamline household and
family tasks by deciding once who handles whole areas of responsibility.

(00:27):
Then you can do your jobs as you best see fit,
and you can stop worrying about other people's fears of influence.
Maintaining a home and raising a family are huge jobs
that encompass myriad responsibilities. Lawn care, home maintenance, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning,

(00:49):
check ups and the like for you and your kids.
Managing children's special needs or therapies, pet care, birthday gifts
and celebrations, car maintenance, financial management, arranging child care either
full time or after school and in the summers. Keeping
up with what's happening in your neighborhood or your religious
community or your kids schools. Troubleshooting cable and internet issues,

(01:13):
taking out the trash and recycling. I bet you could
list at least a dozen more areas of ongoing responsibility.
We all feel like we are doing a lot, and
when we do, it is easy to feel that maybe
other people aren't doing a lot. Such is the stuff
of so many household arguments. This is especially true because

(01:37):
sometimes labor isn't immediately visible. One party might resent spending
time cooking dinner if he or she just signed a
bunch of kids up for summer camps. But how is
any one else in the household supposed to know that
this project just consumed the last two hours. So here
is one approach to making the logistics run more smoothly

(02:00):
and to limit everyone's mental load. Divide and conquer list
household responsibilities and then assign full responsibility for these tasks
to adults and older children in the household. So, for instance,
one person might be in charge of grocery shopping. One

(02:21):
person could be in charge of trash and recycling. One
person could be in charge of bill paying. One person
could be in charge of all veterinary care. You get
this idea. The division of labor is efficient because people
develop expertise. When the sink springs a leak, there is
one person in charge of plumbing who knows exactly which

(02:44):
plumber to call and what is a reasonable amount to
pay for this service. The party in charge of summer
camp planning knows exactly how to fill out all the forms,
and when the deadlines are people can relax about the
areas that aren't their jobs as well they aren't their jobs.
No need to worry about whether the trash that normally

(03:05):
goes out on Mondays needs to go out on a
different night because of an upcoming holiday. The person in
charge of trash and recycling, we'll deal with that now.
Of course, this might not all run completely smoothly. Perhaps
one sphere becomes utterly overwhelming, in which case roles might

(03:25):
need to be renegotiated. Certain spheres are probably best split
for emotional and relationship building reasons, such as taking care
of small kids during non school and work hours. All
parties should know at least something about family finances, even
if one person handles the logistics. So not everything is

(03:46):
going to be completely divided and conquered. And of course
there's this common question what do you do when someone
appears to just not do their stuff every and suffers
if the trash doesn't go out to the curb on
trash Day in the garage reeks for the entire next week.

(04:07):
Someone once left a comment on my blog mentioning that
in the two parents in this family had decided that
Party A would always bring the kids to school since
Party b's jobs started at the crack of dawn. Net result,
the children had fifty tardies in the course of a year. Yikes.

(04:27):
It is hard to know what's going on in any
given situation. I mean there may need to be some
tough conversations, though in general it's best for people to
select the jobs that they are most drawn to, or
that they care most about or have the highest standards for.
If one party barely loves cooking and the other doesn't,

(04:47):
the non cooking party is best off being assigned to, say,
dish duty, rather than having constant fights over a meal
rotation involving frozen pizzas or take out. There should also
be a con or station about what constitutes done. In
an upcoming episode, I'll talk about how there is a
difference between doing something yourself and making it happen. Even

(05:12):
if one party loves cooking, general household standards need not
require a cooked from scratch dinner every single night. There
also needs to be some grace and no micromanaging. Fifty
tardis does seem a bit much to me. On the
other hand, if one party agrees to do children's baths,

(05:32):
and that party thinks three times a week is just
fine for children too young to wash themselves. The other
party's belief that five times a week is right is
not really relevant. The stakes about this are low so
but out in general, though, most people who choose to
share a household want to make things run smoothly. If

(05:55):
someone who hates grocery shopping knows that taking out the
trash mean he or she is never going to have
to visit a grocery store again, well this can make
for a very attractive trade off. So if you are
looking for ways to reduce the mental load, consider listing
out duties and divvying them up, assigning full responsibility for completion.

(06:18):
You just might make everyone a little happier in the meantime.
This is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

(06:39):
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
number four then Breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeart
media dot com. Before breakfast is spelled out with all

(07:01):
the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.